Dear Aly,
Whew!! I finally finished my last book of 2013, and just in time! I was kind of feeling the pressure since I haven’t had a ton of time to read and for some reason I wasn’t feeling all that inspired to, but I pushed through it!
Venom by Fiona Paul is NOT fantasy (I can hear the big sigh of relief from our readers haha), it’s a historical murder mystery. It’s the debut novel in a series called The Secrets of the Eternal Rose, sounds cool right?? I was so attracted to the cover of this book, it sports a girl in a gorgeous Venetian carnivale mask. Now, I’m a sucker for anything Venetian, and I loooove murder mysteries so I thought this book would be perfect for me. I actually bought this a while ago, may have even been in 2012! I read a few pages, set it down and forgot about it for a while. No idea what made me pick it up again, but I felt drawn to read it.
It’s about a young contessa, Cassandra Caravello, who, after experiencing the untimely death of a friend, begins to suspect that something bigger and darker is happening in her city. She meets a mysterious artist, Falco, who helps her out in solving this mystery. Basically everyone in this book is not who they seem. Falco is involved with some secret work, Cass’s arranged fiancé, Luca, has a dark secret, and sometimes all this mystery is kinda disorienting! We like Falco, but he’s also kinda creepy; sometimes his comments about the “appreciation of the female body” kinda skeeved me out. He’s really sweet otherwise though.
There’s also these super creepy quotes from some book called the “Book of the Eternal Rose” which I’m assuming is where the series gets its title. I have no idea really what the book is, it’s only mentioned once. The quotes have these almost… Aristotelian quality to their language and they’re mostly about weird, renaissance-y doctor-y topics. There is a cool quote I liked though, “Both the teardrop and the tempest are made of water, making it the most yielding and most destructive force on Earth.”
Overall, I wouldn’t call this the greatest book I’ve ever read, nor is it the worst. It kind of falls in the middle; a book you’d read for fun and not have to worry about thinking too hard as you read. I really have no idea where the title, Venom comes from, we’ll probably find out in the next book of the series.
I can’t wait to see what amazing books come out in 2014, I want them all!!!! I also just received The Hollow Crown series from the library today, so that will be what’s sucking up the rest of my break, can’t wait!!!
Happy reading, see you in the new year!
Zoe
FromAtoZBooks 